Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is used to cause specific tissue destruction, using photochemical reactions that result from light excitation of photosensitizer, which has localized in the target tissue. The process of photosensitizer photobleaching was...

Morbidity and complexity involved in lymph node staging via surgical resection and biopsy could ideally be overcome using node assay techniques that are non-invasive. Visible blue dyes, fluorophores and radio-tracers are often used to locate the...

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare and often-fatal systemic autoimmune disease characterized by vasculature dysfunction, immune activation, and extracellular matrix deposition in skin and internal organs. The etiology of SSc is unknown, but it is...

Two localized spectroscopic imaging methods were investigated to detect and discriminate microscopic pathologies at the surface of excised breast tissues in order to improve resection completeness during breast conserving surgery. A scanning in...

I. Intermolecular C-S Bond Forming Reactions
The relatively small number of efficient C-S bond forming reactions in the literature prompted an investigation into the synthesis of allylic thioethers. The technology that we developed allowed us, in...

The translational potential of new therapeutic strategies for cancer is limited, in part, by a lack of biological models that capture important aspects of tumor growth and treatment response. It is also becoming increasingly evident that no single...

Molecular optical imaging in vivo has potential for functional assessment of tumor tissue at the cellular and subcellular level. Advances in biological understanding of genomics and proteomics have increased the knowledge of possible cellular...

Most solid tumors are aneuploid, and many tumor cells persistently mis-segregate whole chromosomes at an elevated rate in a process called chromosomal instability (CIN). CIN occurs due to loss of chromosome segregation fidelity during mitosis,...

Previous studies have shown that the mucosal immune system is present in the female reproductive tract and under hormonal control. With the recognition that underlying stromal cells regulate epithelial cell function and hormonal responsiveness,...

The main theme of this thesis is to investigate the origins of photosensitizer pharmacokinetic variability, how this pharmacokinetic variation affects photodynamic therapy (PDT), and to search for innovative strategies to reduce the...

Epigenetic regulation of gene expression is a developing field of study with many potential therapeutic applications. Chromatin remodeling is necessary for proper mammalian development, and misregulation of this process is associated with many...

Fluorescent molecules targeted to reveal information on tissue function have been used as research tools in ex vivo and subsurface characterization of diseased tissue for years. Exploiting this specificity for in vivo imaging through centimeters of...

ISGylation is a type 1 interferon-regulated process that involves conjugation of ISG15, an ubiquitin-like protein, to target proteins. This posttranslational modification is reversed by a deubiquitinase known as UBP43 or USP18. UBP43 is deregulated...

MicroRNA-10b (miR-10b) is considered a marker of disease aggressiveness in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), in view of the fact that lower levels of miR-10b are associated with better response to neoadjuvant therapy, likelihood of surgical...

The retinoids--natural and synthetic derivatives of vitamin A--are active in cancer therapy and chemoprevention. The signals that underlie retinoid clinical activity are triggered by induction of retinoid target genes. Therefore, a greater...

Light scattering from tissue originates from the fluctuations in intra-cellular and extra-cellular components, so it is possible that macroscopic scattering spectroscopy could be used to quantify sub-microscopic structures. Both electron microscopy...

Hyperthermia, the elevation of tissue temperature from 42°C to 50°C, is currently being investigated as an adjunct to radiation therapy in the treatment of cancer. The interstitial microwave antenna array hyperthermia (IMAAH) system is designed...

Chromium(VI) is a human carcinogen and causes DNA damage following reduction by intracellular reductants. In order to explore the effects of intracellular reductants on the carcinogenicity of Cr(VI), the roles of glutathione and ascorbate in...